German mega carrier, Lufthansa Airlines, Wednesday offloaded 45 passengers and all the luggage of about 200 passengers fully booked for the Abuja-Frankfurt flight, to reduce the weight of the aircraft for it to take off from a shorter length of the runway.
This was because a big hole developed at one end of the 3, 610 meters (20km) runway, which forced the management of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) to cordon off that part, thus,limiting aircraft from building thrust through the normal runway distance, but to take off after taxing from the usable part of the facility.
Lufthansa, which operated Airbus A330-300 with capacity for 250-290 seats, is a double aisle aircraft that needed to taxi for a longer distance before taking off.
In order to operate safely, using the safe distance of the runway, the pilot of the aircraft had to offload some passengers and luggage to reduce the aircraft weight and enable it to lift after a short distance of taxiing.
The Managing Director and CEO of Aero Contractors, Captain Ado Sanusi, a seasoned pilot confirmed that when a runway is not long enough, an aircraft would have to reduce its weight so that it can gain thrust and take off at a short distance.
“To overcome the challenge posed by the reduced length of the runway, the aircraft had to find an effective way to take off from the usable length; so, you reduce the weight,” Sanusi said.
One of the passengers who on the condition of anonymity, said that the passengers who were dropped were taken to Abuja Continental Hotel, Abuja by the airline by 4: 00 am the following morning and that his flight was now rescheduled to take off on Sunday, July 27, 2025, which is four days after he was scheduled to travel back to Germany.
According to the passenger, selecting the number of the people to drop caused commotion because everybody wanted to travel, but the airline which invited them in groups, skipped the group that was eventually told they would not travel with the flight and even those that travelled did so without their checked in luggage.
The decision not to take any checked in luggage was due to the problem of sorting them out at that critical time, as the flight was supposed to take off by 10:20 pm but was later shifted to 10; 50 and eventually took off later after that.
The passenger also said that they were miffed by the failure of the airline to take them according to schedule, and some of the passengers were considering a mass action against the airline.
It was also learnt that the pilot in command of the flight at a time considered aborting the operation because there was no certainty about the bad portion of the runway that night, as it was drizzling and the weather was inclement.
It indicated that the pilot did not know about the damaged portion of the runway prior to the flight, which means that the Notice to Airmen (NOTAM), which informs pilots about the status of any airport they wish to fly to, was not activated on the limitations of the runway.
“The incident was really saddening because I have not been in Nigeria for eight years, and I faced this problem on my way back to Germany. What happened has disrupted the schedule of many of the passengers. Some were billed to resume work the following day, and others had their appointments; so, it was saddening.
“But I liked the dedication of the staff of the airline who booked me for Sunday.They seemed very organised and friendly. They had to make sure that the offloaded luggage was in order before they moved us to Abuja Continental Hotel, “the passenger added.
It was also gathered that the damaged part of the runway has been there for a long time, and FAAN management had not attended to it.
Some of the airport staff expressed dissatisfaction with the hiccups the damaged runway was causing. Some of them who spoke to the passengers said that there had been notification of the damaged runway to the FAAN management, especially the Airport Manager of the Abuja airport but no action was taken so far.
However, in reaction to the incident, FAAN notified that it shut down the runway on Thursday midnight till 4:00 am on Friday to carry out repair work on the bad portion of the runway, which it described as a depression.
Also, the agency has issued NOTAM to all airlines that use the Abuja airport to review their operation.
-Courtesy:Thisday
